By Ned McRae
These days everyone has a countless number of gadgets and devices, each with a bunch of cables that make a huge tangled mess, which looks ugly, gets dirty, and wastes your time when you have to untangle cables to change your devices out. Not only is it not aesthetically pleasing, but it can also affect your productivity. The old saying, “having a cluttered house is a cluttered mind,” is true. Having a clean and tidy house and workspace can reduce stress and prevent the spread of illness. Cable untidiness is becoming more commonplace as more and more people work from home, as most people now have a keyboard, mouse, monitor, Wi-Fi modem, and more. Unless you have wireless devices, these devices create a nest of cables that look terrible. Luckily, there are many options for tidying up all those messy cables.
Cable storage is a great way to clean up all of your cables and keep them hidden away. Cable storage is cheap and highly effective, so that you can have a tidy house and workspace. This guide will show you the best cable storage solutions depending on your budget and situation.
Cable storage is exactly what it sounds like - storage for your cables! Cable storage can come in many different shapes and sizes, depending on what your needs are. Cable storage keeps your cables from getting tangled, which looks messy and difficult to work with if you need to change your cables.
Cable storage can look quite different depending on what kind of cables you use, where the cables are, and what your budget is. Cable storage can simply be a few cable ties or a tray that attaches to the underside of your desk. No matter what form of cable storage you go with, they all can be effective at reducing cable clutter and creating a tidy home.
Cable storage can be split into two categories. Cable storage and cable management. Cable storage consists of storing unused cables, while keeping them from tangling. Cable management is keeping visible cables hidden, like those hanging behind your desk from your computer or underneath your TV.
There exists a very large variety of cable storage products to suit everyone and their individual needs, each varying in price and features.
Cable sleeves keep cables bundled together in a sleek sleeve, looking much better than a bunch of loose cables just hanging around. These can be made of a flexible hard plastic which is very durable, but most are made of a flexible and expandable fabric that tightly wraps around the bunch of cables. They can be cut to the length you desire, and some can even have holes cut into the side when you have different cable lengths. These are great for cables hanging down from a wall-mounted TV or computer cables hanging under your desk.
Cable clips or clamps are used when you want to run cables along a wall or other flat surface. These attach usually with nails or adhesive and clamp or clip your cables against the wall, which is great for cables that have to travel far such as an ethernet cable that need to be placed out of the way, or cables behind your TV. These are relatively inexpensive and fairly easy to install.
Cable boxes are perfect to hide bulky cables such as power boards and laptop chargers and are easy to use. They aren’t great looking, but still look a lot better than a bunch of cables on the floor and do a good job of hiding cables away.
Cable management trays are more expensive than the other options, but they work really really well. Cable management trays mount to the underside of your desk, and allow you to route the cables from your devices such as monitors, routers and mice under the desk and out of the way. These work really well as it essentially makes your cables invisible as you can’t see anything like a cable sleeve or box. They’re fairly easy to install as they simply screw into the underside of your desk.
Cable ties are the most cost-effective way to manage your cables. They’re easy to find at any local hardware store and even some supermarkets. They’re also really easy to use - just cable tie a bundle of cables together and you’re good to go.
Cable storage can be really useful if you’re sick of having to untangle cables every time you need to use them. These usually consist of some type of tightly wound cable router that prevents cables from becoming tangled.
Cable bags are perfect for those who travel a lot and need to bring their tech with them, such as photographers. These are usually soft flexible bags that hold cables in flexible bands or velcro and can usually be adjusted to suit your needs.
Labelling your cables can take the guess work out of figuring out what your cables are meant for. You can purchase labels that are design for labelling cables, or you can just use a normal label maker.
Retractable cord holders wrap your cables inside a case, which prevents them from being tangled. They are quite affordable, easy to use, and look quite nice. These can be found on websites like amazon.com.
Drawer dividers sit in your drawer and create different sections. These are a great form of cable storage as you can separate your cables depending on their use, and it helps them from getting tangled up with each other. They are affordable and easy to install.
Cable ties are an extremely affordable alternative to retractable cord holders. Although it won’t look as pretty, you can use cable ties to wrap a cable up to keep it from getting tangled. They work great and can be found at all hardware stores.
If you want to get really fancy with your cable management and storage, then going wireless is a great way to simply reduce of the number of cables you use in your household. You can get so many wireless devices now, such as mice, keyboards and even wireless modems. Although expensive, going wireless is a surefire way to reduce the amount of cable clutter in your home, and means you don’t have to worry as much about cable storage.
